Max Roach- SURVIVORS

Max Roach- SURVIVORS (1984)
From the back cover notes (enclosed):

When I first heard the improvised solo on Side A of this record, it was to me clear that Max had burst the boundaries of traditional jazz form to create a new type of music. It seemed almost impossible to me that anyone could at the spur of the moment improvise a piece of music as well shaped as if it had been written by a master composer (if there were any who could write as well as Max plays) that could have so many layers of rhythm going on all at once, that could swing so hard, and that could be so musically expressive. (...)

My idea for the present piece, for Survivors, was to create a form for this tremendous energy and creative skill, to give an emotional shape and structure that would set forth this new music to the whole world - (my classical world as well as his) so that all can see it for what it truly is: genuinely new, emotionally powerful and - the genuine art music of out time- classic.

28 years ago, at the first Monterey Jazz Festival, we created what to my knowledge was the first true concerto for improvising soloist and orchestra - the "Monterey Concerto For Max". In this, Max played an amazing and musically successful solo. But what I wrote was the "classical music" of a young and emerging composer schooled in Stravinsky, Bartok and Hindemith. The piece did not swing. Now 25 years later- we both think, we have finally got it, (...)
- Peter Phillips

Side Two of this record contains 6 compositions for a soloist.
These are compositions in the traditional jazz idiom in that they comprise a "head": a statement of a musical theme, and a subsequent improvised part derived from the thematic material. The notable difference is that these themes are written for an un-pitched batterie of percussion instruments- a traditional jazz drum kit.
The thematic material is, therefore, primarily rhythmic, but not simply so- the individual drums are used in a relatively melodic manner- high to low, and the results are what might be termed 'architectural' in nature and effect - in that the form of the entire work may be perceived in a single glance, and in that the form is present in all the details.
- DrE


















Max Roach- SURVIVORS

Side One:

1- Survivors (Peter Phillips / Max Roach) (21:28)

Max Roach: Multiple Percussion Set
String Quartet:
Guillermo Figueroa, First Violin;
Donald Bauch, Second Violin;
Louise Schulman, Viola;
Christopher Finckel, Cello


Side Two:

1- The Third Eye (2:10)
2- Billy The Kid (2:57)
3- JasMe (3:37)
4- The Drum Also Waltzes (3:18)
5- Sassy Max (Self Portrait) (3:20)
6- The Smoke That Thunders (5:47)

Max Roach: Multiple Percussion Set

Recorded Oct.19,20,and 21, 1984 at Vanguard Studios,New York.

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